


halfway to halfway there

by Katbelle



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst and Feels, Bonding, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Fake Character Death, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jessica has a crush on Matt, Light Angst, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 06:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: Matt Murdock is dead, and Jessica has a complicated relationship with that fact. They were more alike than she thought. In another world, the two of them might have been something. In another world, she might have understood his motives. But it's this world, and here she doesn't knowwhy.Trish shakes her head. “Understand what?”“Why he would let himself die and leave the people who love him behind. That’s--Shit, Trish, that’s justcruel. What kind of a persondoes that?”





	halfway to halfway there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettybirdy979](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/gifts).



> My dear recipient! Thank you for this amazing prompt. I tried to do it justice, and I am sorry that Matt Murdock only shows up after more than half of the fic has passed, but. You know. The space that is unoccupied by someone can be as important and meaningful as the space they do occupy.
> 
> I tried to explore the issues Jessica might have with Matt, and the possibilities of what the Defenders might do in the aftermath of Midland Circle. I do hope I succeeded at least in part.
> 
> Merry Christmas, dear recipient!

**halfway to halfway there**

 

 _Our most difficult task as a friend is to offer understanding when we don't understand._  
Robert Brault

 

_(two days six hours before)_

It’s not difficult to find information on one Matthew Michael Murdock.

(His parents clearly didn’t care much for his future, naming him like that. Alliterative names were for losers or fictional superheroes, and Matthew Michael Murdock was not the latter, though the jury was still out on the former. And, like, heh. He shared initials with a brand of sweets.)

There’s a shitton of information about him on the internet, it’s pitiful, really, how much effort it _doesn’t_ take. Pages and pages of interesting information about one of the two men who last year defended Frank Castle in court. One half of the now defunct duo of Nelson  & Murdock. Matthew Michael Murdock, the brilliant student, Columbia Law graduate, _summa cum laude_ and shit. Used to work for Landman  & Zack, currently under investigation. Helped put the once Hell’s Kitchen saviour, Wilson Fisk, behind bars.

So _that’s_ what happened to that playground Fisk wanted to build around her apartment building. Matthew Murdock happened.

It’s slightly more difficult to dig up information on Matthew Murdock’s pre-law school days, but he does pop up. Thanks, nameless _Bulletin_ intern who was made digitalize all their old issues. There was extensive coverage of an accident which left a local nine-year-old blind. A mention or two of a settlement with the company which owned the truck. Then nothing for quite a while, and then. Jack Murdock dead. Local boxer murdered after a spectacular fight.

Jessica didn’t live in Hell’s Kitchen at the time. She lived in the suburbs in a beautiful house and her biggest problem was her seven-year-old idiot brother leaving his toy cars in her room.

 _Christ_. Murdock was closer in age to Philip than he was to Jessica.

It takes substantially longer to find information on Jonathan Murdock. But Jessica _is_ good at what she does, so after five hours of painstaking pouring over tens of pages of Google search results, she thinks she has the picture. Not all of it, there’s _got_ to be more to it, but this is a start.

A crimefighting blind lawyer. 

Jessica laughs to herself. More like a guilt-ridden broken idealist with severe daddy issues.

That’s one hell of an origin story.

 

_(one day nineteen hours before)_

“I just think... we’ll work better together if we trust each other.” She glances at him. “Don’t you?”

Matt smiles. He’s handsome when he smiles, that boyish smile adds a certain warm charm to his face. He must be good at comforting clients. Probably could make millions off that alone if he cared for that kind of crap.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She rolls her eyes and manages to contain her smile. She wonders if he knows when people smile. “Yeah, don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll treasure this like it’s the last compliment you’ll ever give me.”

She does snort at that. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asks instead and takes a sharp turn left, blocking his way. His reflexes are damn good, he catches himself _catching himself_ and doesn’t show that he _knew_ she was in his path.

Some of the passerbys give her scalding looks, how dare she do that to a blind man, and Jessica just gives them her sweetest, most fake-looking smile.

“Starving, actually,” Matt says. He really does have a beautiful smile. No wonder one of the reviews on Avvo named him ‘the sexiest lawyer in NYC’ and another claimed that its author would plead guilty to anything if only Mr. Murdock would take her out.

“Perfect. Come on, they give good hot dogs here.” Jessica waves in the general direction of the hot dog stand. “I know the owner. And I’m even going to pay.”

“You’re in a generous mood.”

“Yeah, well, you work mostly _pro bono_ which means you’re even more broke than I am.”

 

_(one hour thirty-nine minutes before)_

“Not the cops?” Jessica says. “How does he even _know_ that?”

Luke shrugs. “He can hear pretty well?”

“And how does that help recognize a person?” She runs a hand over her face, tired. “Christ, what are we even doing here.”

“Following Matt’s lead.” Luke sighs. “I hate to admit it too, but right now he is the person most knowledgeable about this mess.”

“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” She glances at the window. On the other side of it, Matt is speaking to a blondish guy in a suit that even through the blinds looks expensive. The guy’s not a cop, per Matt, and that leaves a horrifying number of possibilities. “And who is that? Looks fancy. Think he might be a CIA agent?”

Luke looks at the window too, and raises a brow, clearly skeptical. “A CIA agent?”

“All we’re missing now are spies and we’d be in a goddamn superhero trainwreck.” She casts a quick look around. “Do you think you and I would be able to break out of here?”

Luke gives the walls a quick once-over. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Jessica nods. “We need to get to Midland Circle.”

“Then it definitely won’t be a problem.” Jessica raises her brows in silent surprise and Luke shrugs. “You won’t get an argument from me.”

On the other side of the window, Matt and the CIA guy hug. Huh. So, possibly not a CIA guy. Matt pauses for a second before entering the room, and when he does, he has a shocked expression on his face, disbelief warring with gratitude, and it really is cosmically unfair that even such a mix looks good on him.

“Look,” Luke starts the moment Matt closes the door and props himself up on them, “Jess and I have been talking and no matter what it takes, no matter what we have to tell these cops, we gotta get to Midland Circle.”

“Okay,” Matt gives them the tiniest of nods. “So long as we’re on the same page. Here’s my official legal advice: you kidnap me.”

Jessica shakes her head. Must have misheard. “I’m sorry, we _what_?”

“You kidnap me,” Matt repeats, and how can he say that with a straight face is beyond her. “You break out of here and kidnap me. _I_ can’t leave with you, so you’ll have to take me.”

“That sounds overly complicated,” Luke voices Jessica’s precise thought. Matt makes a face, something between apologetic and a ‘what can you do’. He really has no control over his expressions, how does he manage to work in court.

Jessica waves her hand, beckoning the men away from the station’s outer wall. “We follow Matt,” she reminds Luke and manages to catch Matt off-guard with that statement. “And he’s a loser with a ‘secret identity’,” she does do the air quotes, “so we’ve gotta accommodate that. Now take a step back. I’ll be redecorating.”

 

_(one hour seven minutes before)_

“They’ve got an APB out on us,” Matt tells them. Then he scoffs. “They think you guys kidnapped me.”

Jessica scoffs too. The one time the cops actually use their heads for thinking, it had to be figuring out Matt’s less than brilliant plan. “Great.” But at least they bought it, and Matt’s loser secret identity thing was safe. The silver lining on the very fucked up cake.

And then they fucking take the subway.

 _Joy._

 

_(forty-two minutes before)_

He looks _ridiculous_ in that fucking red devil suit of his.

Jessica leans over to Luke, “There it is again.” Luke snorts and she knows that he’s silently judging the hell out of Matt.

She thinks she sees the corners of Matt’s lips twitch.

 

_(twelve minutes before)_

“You guys need to get to the surface,” Matt says as he helps Danny get up.

The best fucking thing Jessica has heard all day. “No complaints here.”

“What about you?” Danny asks, because he’s the kind of kid who needs to have everything spelled out. And, that, that’s adorable. Or would be, if they had the time to ponder such things, if there wasn’t a horde of undead homicidal ninjas surrounding them, led by a sexy mass killer.

Matt shakes his head ‘no’. “No, I’m gonna meet you up there.”

Wait the fuck. “What?!” Jessica turns on her heel.

“I know I can get through to her,” Matt tells her and it says a lot about the state of his fucked up belief, that he feels the need to explain himself. And, like, hilarious. ‘Reach her’. A soulless killing machine.

He knows shit. Jessica is tempted to punch him in the stupid mask, to knock him out and drag him back up with them. Matthew Michael Murdock, fucking Mr. Pro Bono Lawyer, saviour of the common folk and undeserving sexy mass killers. Matt knows shit, he’s not even thirty, for god’s sake.

At least Luke has her back on this one. “You back on that again?” he asks, incredulous, because that just might be the stupidest thing they’ve heard and they’ve heard a lot of ridiculous things these past few days.

“We’re not gonna leave you here,” Jessica says.

They’re--they're not. They _can’t_. It physically sickens her, the idea that they might leave Matt behind. You don’t leave your own behind. Not if you can help it. You do everything in your power to come back. And they all have people waiting. They’re not going to leave Matt behind.

But they do, in the end they have to, and Luke says, “Come on, guys,” and they go, and they leave Matt behind. Matt catches Danny by his arm and whispers something to him, and it stuns Danny enough to make him falter.

“Let’s go!” Jessica yells at him and he moves, finally, takes a few stumbling steps still looking at Matt before walking into the elevator with her and Luke.

She can’t stop looking at Matt as the elevator starts its upwards climb. She feels like they’re somehow betraying him. She feels like she should jump out, like she should go back for him.

And then there are ninjas everywhere and Jessica has no time to feel.

 

_(the fall)_

The building explodes, just like they agreed it should. The building comes crashing down, just like the architect predicted.

Jessica can’t make herself watch. She closes her eyes and listens to the deep rumble of falling metal and the loud crash of breaking glass.

Luke touches her arm and she knows it’s over. There’s only smoke when a moment before Midland Circle towered over buried dragon bones.

“He had no intention of making it out alive,” Danny says. He sounds surprised. He sounds betrayed and lied to, he sounds exactly the way Jessica feels.

It stabs through her, a pain she doesn’t even know the origin of. She bites her lip and tries to will away the sudden flood of _loss_.

 

_(twenty minutes)_

She’s the first one to enter the room. Trish notices her immediately. She moves towards Jessica, Jessica moves towards Trish, and her sister wraps her in a hug, mindless of the sweat and grime and blood and dirt on Jessica’s face and hands and clothes. Jessica hugs her back just as strongly, buries her face in Trish’s blond hair and offers a silent prayer to a god Matt Murdock believed in, a litany of _thank you thank you thank you she’s safe thank you for that_.

Malcolm is there too, and he throws his arms around the both of them, and who would have thought, a year ago he was just her junkie neighbour and now he was one of the two people in the world Jessica would die to protect. 

The two people she would do everything in her power to come back to.

“What happened?” Trish whispers gently, tracing a finger down Jessica’s face. It’s a caress, something a parent might do for their child, or a sister for her sibling, and Jessica wants to cry. She just shakes her head and holds on.

On her left, two people that Matt Murdock didn’t die for want to do the same thing.

 

_(two hours sixteen minutes)_

They let them go free. No one utters a word about the kidnapping of a blind lawyer who didn’t come back with them.

 

_(two hours forty-six minutes)_

Trish takes her back to her own place and Jessica is too tired to argue. She sits on Trish’s expensive sofa and allows Trish to take off her shoes and her clothes. She allows Trish to walk her to the bathroom and put her under the shower and wash her with gentle and careful hands.

It’s not just the physical exhaustion that has its grip on her; with the adrenaline gone, Jessica feels like she’s standing over an abyss, she feels like the chasm in her heart got bigger, a deep bottomless pit of sadness and loss, and she can’t even say why.

It’s not like she’s been invested. It’s not like they were friends. It’s not like she actually knew anything about him. It’s not like she cared, and it’s not like he cared, either.

He didn’t even care about the two people in that room hard enough to want to live for them.

“Shh,” Trish says as she towels her hair, “shh. It’s alright, you’re alright now.”

It’s not alright, she’s not alright, and that guy and that blonde from the station are not alright, and that blonde was tall and pretty just like Trish, and it’s _so easy_ to imagine that it _was_ Trish, to imagine a world in which the elevator didn’t work or they didn’t get out in time, or the bombs went off earlier, or they were killed by those fucking undead homicidal ninjas or the sexy mass killer who was worth more than everything to Matt. It was so easy, to put Trish in that place, to image Trish’s face tear-streaked and red and puffy, to imagine Trish’s heartbreak because Jess didn’t _care enough_ to spare her.

Jessica knows the pain of loss. Matt fucking Murdock knew it too and it still didn’t stop him from inflicting it on the people who loved him and who now had to mourn his fucking sorry ass.

Trish lets Jessica bury her face in Trish’s shoulder. She murmurs platitudes and runs her fingers through Jessica’s wet hair as sobs rake through Jessica’s body, and she didn’t give her body permission to cry, but it does so anyway, because it is over, they’re safe and the city is safe and Matt Murdock is dead and the blonde from the station, wherever she is now, is crying too.

 

_(six hours eleven minutes)_

Trish lets her sleep in her bed and when Jessica wakes up screaming, she even brings a steaming mug of coffee with something extra. Jessica sniffs and realizes that Trish’s coffee has whiskey in it too.

Trish settles on the bed next to her and allows Jessica to lay against her chest. It’s not something Jessica allows herself, usually, but today is not usual, today she saved a whole fucking city from a millennia-old organization of evil undead homicidal ninjas or some shit like that, and left someone behind to die. Saw someone want to be left behind.

“What happened?” Trish asks again and this time Jessica is willing to answer.

She should probably talk about it. It wasn’t traumatic in the way Kilgrave was, but it sure screwed her up even more. “Someone died in that explosion.”

She imagines Trish furrowed her brows. “The dispatch said the building was empty.”

Jessica shrugs. “Someone died in that explosion.”

“Was it that lawyer you supposedly kidnapped?” Trish rests her cheek on the top of Jessica’s head. “He didn’t come back with you.”

 _You kidnap me_ , and he even said it with a straight face. Jessica laughs, then, out loud, full body, and distantly she knows it’s just another sign of delayed shock and trauma, but she cannot help it. He told them to kidnap him and the police bought that. How stupid of them not to connect the dots. They kidnap a blind lawyer and arrive at Midland Circle with Daredevil in tow and the lawyer nowhere in sight, Daredevil doesn’t come out with them and the blind lawyer doesn’t come back to the station.

Screw shock and trauma, that shit’s fucking _hilarious_.

“Yeah,” Jessica admits. “And I cannot figure out why I even care.”

 

_(four days six hours)_

There’s a service at Matt’s local church that Jessica doesn’t attend. She’s not sure of the protocol. It’s too early to declare him legally dead, so he must be presumed dead, but everyone knows you can’t survive a building collapsing on top of you. So everyone knows he’s dead, they just don’t want to say it out loud, partly in fear of being asked questions like, “what was a blind lawyer even doing in that building with you?” or “the fuck you kidnapped a blind lawyer for?”. And, there’s a sort of a memorial service, or a memorial vigil, at Matt’s local church because that’s the Catholic thing to do, and Jessica doesn’t go, not inside. Better not to draw attention, she reasons. And it’s quite possible that she’d laugh right there, in the church, because everything seems funny lately.

Example: Matt used to be an altar boy. He was a fucking altar boy, once. Which is not surprising, he was raised in a Catholic orphanage run by nuns, but he was an altar boy long before that. Long before his father’s death and before his accident.

Matthew Murdock, an ex-altar boy in a fucking red devil suit.

Jessica laughs every time she thinks about that, laughs until her sides hurt and she laughs until it’s not funny anymore because that altar boy is dead and she can’t really talk about it, his loser secret identity and all. Hush hush.

She stands in front of the church during the service and thinks about Heaven and Hell, and all that crap Matt apparently believed in, and wonders if he made it to Heaven. She’s fairly certain he didn’t because his sexy mass killer surely didn’t and if Matt was unwilling to leave her behind in life, he sure wasn’t going to leave her behind in death.

Saint fucking Matthew Murdock who though everyone could be saved and everyone deserved a chance.

Well, boo hoo, but not everyone could be saved and apparently the people who cared for him and whom he left weren’t deserving of the same chance.

 

_(nine days two hours)_

Matt Murdock was a mess, once.

 

_(nine days three hours)_

One of the advantages of having a millionaire – or was it a billionaire now? – fancy himself your friend was the access to anything one could want. And if the millionaire in question owns a hospital, even better, one could get their hands on any medical files without having to break into hospital records.

“Why do you want that?” Danny asks after she has stormed into his office and very politely requested that he gets her Matt’s records. He does sound rather suspicious, as if he thought that her request violated Matt’s privacy or something.

She’s tempted to tell him that violating people’s privacy is in her job description and that she gets paid serious money for that. Then she’s tempted to tell him that Matt is dead and as such can’t care about people violating his privacy.

What she can’t tell him is the truth, that she wants to see if anything in his history would explain why he thought it a brilliant idea to stay in that hole in the ground and leave people behind. Maybe he secretly had sociopathic tendencies. Would explain his apparent serious case of ‘I don’t give a shit’.

“If I have the access to his files, I’ll know if there are any updates,” she tells him instead.

Danny’s eyes light up. “You think he might have survived?”

She rather thinks his body might end up being dug up, truthfully, but she nods anyway. Danny beams at that, because he’s like a puppy, he’s naïve, he wants positive reinforcement, he wants good to triumph, he wants the heroes to win he wants hope. He needs hope and since they are the heroes in this situation, he wants them to come out on top.

He lets her use the computers at his hospital, not really knowing that he’s giving Jessica access to much more than she originally asked for.

All the better.

 

_(nine days six hours)_

Matt Murdock was a mess, once.

Just looking at that old blind guy they’ve met, Branch, told her that Matt had issues. If that was his teacher or childhood hero or some other shit, Matt must have been seriously messed up. Branch looked and acted like an asshole, some of that assholery must have rubbed off on Matt. And then there were the people Matt was hanging out with while at NYU, in undergrad.

The information on his time at NYU was scarce, but it was possible to find a thing or two. A picture taken at some sort of a competition that Matt and his then-friends took part in. Well. Friends. Sort of. One became a fellow lawyer, one vanished off the face of the earth, two went down for possession, one drugged himself to death a couple of years back.

Matt didn’t look like a drug addict. Jessica knows what an addict looks like, she’s an alcoholic and she knows, and Matt. Matt looked like a puppy slightly older and more abused than the Danny puppy. He came across like a person who had a grip on most things.

Which probably meant he didn’t have a grip on most things.

Maybe that’s why.

A former altar boy, a former drug addict who wants to be a lawyer to defend the common folk, someone who clearly has been given a second chance, maybe that’s why. Maybe that’s why he thought he needed to stay behind, down there. Maybe he felt he had to repay some debt to the world and saving Elektra was it.

One hell of an origin story.

 

_(nineteen days one hour)_

“You keep putting things in that giant folder you’re now trying to hide in your desk,” Malcolm points out one day.

It’s a Thursday, of all days, and New York has been saved for nineteen days now. There are no more earthquakes and weird accidents and, best of all, no more fucking undead homicidal ninjas. Yesterday they had a prospective client visit and Jessica took his case. Cheating wife. Suspected incest. All the good stuff.

“So?” Jessica asks.

“Do we have a case that you haven’t told me about?” Malcolm crosses his arms. “How can I be an assistant to you if you don’t tell me things?”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “It’s not a case.”

“Then why are you working on that? We have an actual client now, we should focus on that.”

“Malcolm...”

“I’m just saying, it’s our first client after last month, we should focus on that. If that folder is for an old case, I’ll take it and file it away.” Malcolm moves towards her desk. “Is that the architect?”

“No.” Jessica shuts the drawer and locks it. “It’s none of your business.”

“Then what--“

“Alright, it’s a case,” Jessica shuts him down. Malcolm quirks his brow. “It’s personal, okay, just for me, the client insisted.”

“Didn’t know we were hired for anything so high-profile.”

“It’s from Hogarth,” Jessica lies smoothly, hoping that Malcolm will drop it. “I got it today, it’s very sensitive, can’t talk yet.”

Malcolm raisers his hands in a peacemaking gesture and backs off. Jessica breathes a sigh of relief. “Whatever you say, boss.”

 

_(twenty three days)_

Hogarth is not excited to see her and even less excited to hear her out, but she does end up giving Jessica an assignment. Perfect. Her cover story is set, now there’s no way Malcolm will stumble upon something he shouldn’t if he goes snooping in her desk. All that will be there are – Jessica glances at the name on Hogarth’s handwritten note – the files of one Derek Bishop.

“I don’t want anything to happen to him,” Hogarth states in that flat voice she sometimes uses with Jessica. “Just a few pictures to prove he is lying.”

“Have I ever harmed anyone?” Jessica asks and, prompted by Hogarth’s dubious expression, hastens to add, “That you didn’t want harmed, that is?”

Hogarth sighs. “You’re surprisingly reliable when it comes to that,” she says and Jessica decides to take that as her agreeing. Hogarth glances behind Jessica and waves her hand, beckoning someone to come in. And yes, the door to her office opens. “Ah, Franklin, come in. Jessica was just leaving.”

Jessica glances over he shoulder, too, to see an ill-looking man enter. His otherwise well-tailored and clearly expensive suit hangs awkwardly on him, as if he’s lost weight recently, and Jessica can’t shake the feeling that she knows him from somewhere.

“Thank you for stopping by, Jessica,” Hogarth says and means it to be a goodbye and a dismissal. Jessica picks up the documents she’s been given, nods her thanks, and gets up. She moves past the man who shoots her what may have been a glare on someone who wasn’t simultaneously so puffy and tired and underfed-looking. It’s hard to feel intimidated by someone who clearly hasn’t slept in days.

“You’ll get the photos by the end of the week,” she tells Hogarth on her way out.

The guy’s pitiful glare accompanies her until she reaches the elevators.

Where has she seen his face before?

 

_(twenty three days two hours)_

Oh.

_Oh._

That’s where she has seen his face before.

 

_(twenty three days eleven hours)_

_Josie’s_ is a bar not too far from her apartment and one she’s heard good things about, if by ‘good’ one meant the owner’s attitude towards people who were willing to drink their entire stash of whiskey and sometimes started – and always ended – fights. That’s where she goes now, her old haunt in the Kitchen closed due to the owner’s terminal cancer, and Luke’s place blown up to pieces and not reestablishing itself in the foreseeable future. There are many bars in the Kitchen, but the shoddier, the better, because respectable places are not for the likes of her.

“Jessica Jones,” she hears somewhere on her left and she closes her eyes. Another reason why _Josie's_ seemed like a good place was that it wasn’t exactly her part of Hell’s Kitchen and she figured that the possibility of meeting someone who might know her was pretty low.

No such luck. What else is new. She turns on her stool to address the speaker, “Listen, man, whatever it is--“

She stops when she sees his face. It’s still drawn tight and still tired and still puffy, but his eyes are even more bloodshot than in the morning, and she’s not sure if it’s because he’s been pouring over files or depositions or shit, or because he’s been crying recently.

If she were a betting woman – and she’s not, she’s too broke for that – she’d say it’s the latter.

“Yes?” she asks politely instead, changing tactics.

She expects shouting. She expects sobbing. She expects accusations and hatred. Instead, the other half of the now defunct Nelson & Murdock duo – Franklin, Hogarth called him Franklin – hands her an envelope. “Jeryn Hogarth asked me to deliver these to you.” Stunned, she takes the envelope. “Some additional files on Derek Bishop.”

O-kay. “How did you know you’d find me here?”

Franklin Nelson shrugs. “I didn’t,” he says. “I came here for a drink.” _Or two,_ Jessica thinks, _or an entire bottle_. “You being here was an unforeseen opportunity.”

Jessica nods, unsure of how else she might react. “Thanks for the files.”

Franklin Nelson doesn’t stop looking at her. It’s beginning to get creepy. “You were at Midland Circle,” he says, perfectly flat and unemotional, and Jessica’s blood goes cold. “You came back.”

Jessica swallows thickly, her throat suddenly dry. She thinks of the hole and the elevator and boyish smiles. “Yeah,” she admits. “I was, I was lucky.”

“Yes,” Franklin Nelson agrees, “luckier than some.”

 

_(thirty days five hours)_

She doesn’t quite get how those two became friends. Franklin Nelson was everything Matt Murdock wasn’t, and yet they clicked. They met in law school, so they’ve known each other for about four years. Not long. Four years of friendship, a drop in the ocean compared to her friendship with Trish, and still, Franklin Nelson looked the way she knows Trish would if it were Jessica who didn’t make it back. 

They were more than friends. They were family, they were _brothers_ and Matt left him behind.

And you don’t _do that_ , you don’t leave your family behind, not if you can help it, not if there is anything you can do, if there is something you can do to stay with your family you fucking _do it_ , and Matt Murdock is a fucking--

 _Was_ a fucking---

Jessica roars in anger and throws a can against the wall. Good thing it was already empty, Trish has paid a lot of money to get her apartment fixed. It would be wholly ungrateful of Jessica to carelessly stain the wallpaper with beer.

That was another thing you didn’t do.

What the fuck was Matt _thinking_.

 

_(one month thirteen hours)_

“So what is this super secret case that I keep hearing about?” Trish asks.

They’re sitting on the couch in Jessica’s apartment. Trish has brought Chinese takeout and cherry beer, and they’re having a sisters’ night. It’s a new thing that Trish has insisted on since Midland Circle. Jessica can’t blame her; they came so close to dying, so close to losing each other. She wants to make sure that Trish is there, just _there_ , too.

“I haven’t told you about any case.”

Trish reaches out and steals some chicken off Jessica’s plate. “No, you haven’t,” she agrees, “but Malcolm and I talk.”

“That little weasel.”

Jessica tries to take her chicken bit back and Trish bats her hand away, laughing. “Jess, come on.”

So it's that kind of an evening. It's an intervention. Malcolm was worried and he got Trish worried, and now it was Trish who had to talk to her. Sneaky. Malcolm knew she'd dismiss him out of hand, but she'd at least listen to Trish. “I got it from Hogarth,” Jessica starts the now familiar lie, “it’s about this publisher--“

“It may fool Malcolm, but I know you better,” Trish interrupts her. “Jessica. He mentioned a big file you didn’t want to show him.”

She should lie. It’s really none of Trish’s business. “I’ve been reading up on that lawyer,” she tells her quietly, “the one who died at Midland Circle.”

“Jess,” Trish sighs and puts away her plate. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Who said anything about it being my fault?” Jessica bristles, defensive. What was Trish thinking, that she was hung up on an idiot who clearly had a death wish? Please. She had enough problems with her own self-esteem.“It was totally all his fault.”

“Is this going to be like with Reva’s husband?”

And that’s, wow, that’s kind of low, but also kind of right, Jessica did develop a slight obsession with Luke following his wife’s death. She might have developed a slight obsession with Matt as well, but this one was justified. There was _something_ , something she was missing still, something that was going to help her make sense of his choices, something that would explain that black hole she felt like she was carrying.

So she rolls her eyes and replies, “No. It’s nothing like that. I just--I just want to figure him out. Find out the truth. Find out why. _Understand._ ”

Trish shakes her head. “Understand what?”

“Why he would let himself die and leave the people who love him behind. That’s--Shit, Trish, that’s just _cruel_. What kind of a person _does that_?”

They're silent for a moment. And then, “I don’t know.” Trish takes her hand and squeezes. “But I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

 

_(one month fourteen days six hours)_

Daredevil was spotted last night. Fucking Daredevil was spotted last night in Hell's Kitchen, saving a group of high school girls from violent muggers.

Holy shit.

Jessica shuts her laptop down, the blurry image of a guy in a devil suit frozen on her screen. The suit is black, clearly new, but it's not surprising to think that the old one didn't survive a building collapsing on it. She's shocked Matt did.

So it seems.

What an asshole.

She ponders calling Danny. They've talked a few time since Midland Circle and since he allowed her to roam freely around his hospital. She knows he's been doing some charity work and she knows he gave Claire Temple a job. He's a good kid, Danny Rand. He was the one who was most inspired by Matt’s manipulative request. He was the one who still hoped and believed. He was the one who felt close to Matt, because Matt was the only one who believed him from the start.

He would want to know. 

Danny Rand deserved to know.

 

_(one month twenty five days two hours)_

She never called Danny. She figured, it's better to talk to Matt first. After all, Matt Murdock was still kind of officially dead, so maybe that's what he wanted. Maybe the Hand was still after them. Maybe Matt was working to bring it down from the inside. Maybe he didn't want anyone to know he was alive.

It was a cruel thing to do to the people who cared about him, but Jessica could understand. If she squinted really hard and turned her head 45 degrees to the left and also conveniently forget about her morals.

It took her almost two weeks to track Daredevil down, but she did figure out his pattern. Matt might claim he worked randomly, but that wasn't true. There were places he appeared at more often than at others. There were causes he was more interested in.

"Hey, Horns!," Jessica yells after him at 3 am in Hell's Kitchen and he stops. He cocks his head to the side and listens. "Do you think we could chat?"

Matt jumps to a fire escape on the building next to him and Jessica huffs. She looks around and jumps up after him, no point in climbing the ladder, we all have some gifts here. She ends up following him to the rooftop where he stopped to wait for her.

"I still maintain that the scarf looked better," she says instead of a greeting, lips curling up in amusement over their little private joke. Then the smile falls. "Matt, what the fuck."

He’s silent for a moment, almost contemplative. And then, "Not Matt," says a voice that definitely doesn't belong to Matt Murdock.

Danny Rand takes off Daredevil's mask and turns to face her with a guilty expression, and Jessica punches him, hard. It’s not even a conscious decision, it’s pure instinct. Danny stumbles backwards, caught off guard, and brings a hand to his nose.

"What the hell, Jessica?"

"More like what the fuck, Danny!" Jessica gestures at him. "What are you doing, running around dressed like a devil?"

Danny sighs and walks over to the edge of the building where he plops down gracelessly. Daredevil always moved with grace, how could she have mistaken Danny Rand for Matt.

Fuck it. She sits down next to him. "So?" she prompts.

Danny has his head hung low and he's looking at his hands. "Matt told us to protect his city."

Well duh. "But he didn't tell us to steal his schtick and run around in fake Daredevil getup."

Danny sighs. "He had this secret identity thing going on," he explains. Duh indeed, that secret identity thing was the reason she now had even more secrets in her life. "And I thought that it would be suspicious, that Daredevil disappears at the same time when Matthew Murdock dies. So I decided to give this city more Daredevil. To keep people from connecting him to Matt, but also to--" Danny stops and angles his face towards the sky. The moon illuminates his profile and gives an eerie glow to his blond hair. "Daredevil is a symbol of hope and the protector of Hell's Kitchen. I didn't want the people to lose that. I know Matt wouldn't want that either. And I think he wouldn't mind me dressing up as him. If that's going to protect the people he loved."

Danny Rand is the youngest of them all, even younger than Matt. He’s little more than a child, really. It's easy to think of him as a stupid privileged kid, but he's so much more than that, Jessica has come to realize. Sometimes, sometimes he even impressed her.

"Where have you been hiding this wisdom before?" Jessica asks, shaking her head. He certainly didn’t struck her as smart a month ago. In fact, he seemed to make a lot of stupid mistakes.

"Well..." Danny starts, and Jessica can swear she hears Philip's voice, answering this same question with ‘I've always been wise’.

"Please don't ruin the moment," Jessica warns.

Danny grins. "That's the wisdom of the Iron Fists, imparted on me by the elders of K'un Lun. I've learnt this before I went to face the great dragon--"

"Danny Rand, you're the worst brat in the world," Jessica says and cannot keep the fondness out of her voice. The next thing that kind of slips out is, "You’re just like my brother."

Danny perks up at that. "I didn't know you had a brother."

Not anymore. "I used to."

"Oh." Danny looks down. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. I think you weren't even on this continent when that happened."

"I'm still sorry."

She reaches out before she can stop herself and ruffles Danny's curly hair. He looks surprised, for a second, then pleased. He has no one, she realizes. She has Trish and Matt had Franklin, and Danny has no one who would act like a sibling towards him. She knows he hoped Matt would be it. But Matt went and died on them, so. She could be it, maybe. Or Luke could be it. Those two seemed to work well together.

She hits him on the back and he chokes on a breath. "Come on, Red Batman, time to go home and become Bruce Wayne again."

 

_(one month twenty seven days)_

Danny was right. Matt told them to protect his city. That was his last request of the people he thought capable of it.

Protecting his friends and loved ones was something they could do to honour him. She wants to believe it’s what Matt would have wanted them to do.

Though she seriously doubts he even thought of that.

 

_(two months eight days ten hours)_

"You know that your company's truck was involved in the accident that blinded Matt?"

Jessica asks this in a very off-handed manner, like it's something that doesn't matter. It doesn’t, really, it's just a little tidbit of information from twenty years ago that Danny might find interesting.

They're sitting in Danny's fancy office and have just finished discussing the background check Jessica did for a prospective employee. Homicidal ninjas might lurk everywhere, it’s better to be prepared.

"What?" he asks, predictably intrigued. “The one that gave him powers?”

Jessica nods. "A Rand Oil and Chemicals truck. I assume Oil and Chemicals is some sort of a subsidiary of Rand Enterprises."

"It used to be," Danny clarifies. "It ceased operating around 2001." He scratches his chin. "And you're saying that it had something to do with Matt's accident?"

"It's in the pictures that were taken at the site, and it's been mentioned by one of the old _Bulletin_ articles from 1997. Matt even got nice settlement money from Rand Enterprises for not sueing them over the accident." She glances at Danny. "You're sure you don't know anything?"

"1997 was slightly before my time," Danny says with a grin and Jessica remembers that he’s a kid and was most likely seven at the time, "but we can quickly remedy that. If that truck really did belong to the company, and if there was a settlement, there must be some records of it."

Danny turns to the computer screen and starts typing. He doesn't do it fast, it's clear that he's still adjusting to the life in 21st century New York, but he's--doing surprisingly alright. The private schooling and tutoring Ward Meachum insisted on is paying off.

"There we go, 1997... Huh," he says. "You know, the truck is listed here as having been leased."

"Leased?"

Danny nods. "Some military research group leased it to transport chemicals. And they even paid the settlement. Weird. There isn’t much on them, just a name. IGH. Not sure what it stands for, though...” Danny looks at her with concern in his eyes. “Jess?"

 

_(two months eight days ten hours fifteen minutes)_

Is that what she felt from the moment they met? Did she sense that? The kinship? The ‘oh god, we're the same’? Is that why she cared?

Why she cares?

Trish has been trying to get her to investigate IGH. To find out the truth and find her own origin story. Jessica wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

Jessica is not lonely. She has Trish and she has Malcolm, and she has a great job, and she even has Danny, who is a little bit like the younger brother she lost. But despite having that, those connections, she's alone. She's a freak with weird powers, and it's not something they can relate to. Not Trish and not Malcolm, they’re normal perfect people, and Danny was trained for his powers and got them from a fucking dragon. Jessica was an accident.

She's always wondered about, and was scared of, meeting someone else like her.

And it seems she already did, an idiot who had a beautiful boyish smile and a beautiful face and an ugly heart, and who was now dead, and Jessica lost her one connection before she even had a chance to figure it out.

She was another one, not deserving of a chance.

Screw Matt Murdock, really.

 

_(two months eight days eleven hours)_

And she would, quite literally.

 

_(two months eight days eleven hours three minutes)_

She did _not_ just think that.

 

_(two months seventeen days three hours)_

“I had a very interesting meeting with Karen Page today,” Trish tells her and Jessica almost chokes on her whiskey.

They’re in one of the fancy Upper East Side restaurants today, Trish barged into Jessica’s office an hour ago and dragged her downstairs to her car and drove her _here_ to this overpriced shit of a place. The waiters keep throwing slightly disgusted looks Jessica’s way and Jessica is not surprised; she still has her yesterday’s T-shirt on, the one with blood stains on one of the sleeves.

“Who’s Karen Page?”

Jessica knows who Karen Page is, of course. A Vermont native, daughter of a scientist, older of two children, brother deceased. A former secretary of the now defunct Nelson & Murdock, close friend of both, but possibly closer to Nelson seeing as Murdock didn’t care. Currently in the employ of the _Bulletin_ where she works as an investigative journalist and runs The Urich Papers column.

AKA the blonde from the station.

“She’s a journalist, she works for the _Bulletin_ ,” Trish explains. She smiles sweetly as a waiter puts a plate full of some unpronounceable French crap in front of her. Jessica’s steak is not here yet. “She was there at the precinct, at the Midland Circle Protection Centre.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“It’s what Malcolm came up with, yes. Sounds pretty accurate.”

Jessica waves her hand prompting Trish to continue. She almost knocks the plate with her steak out of the waiter’s hand, too. “So...?”

“We were talking about starting a blog together.”

“A blog.” Trish nods. “No offence, Trish, but she chases after serial killers and you’re the lifestyle guru of like half of Manhattan. What could you possibly blog about together?”

“We both care about our city and our communities,” Trish says. “We’d like to work on that.”

“I’m not sure I’m happy about you hanging out with her,” Jessica murmurs. “She has a strange fondness for killers with cute dogs.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jessica shakes her head. “Is that why we’re here? You wanted to sweeten the blow the information that you’re going to get mixed up with dangerous shit, this time of your own volition, would have?”

“Yes,” Trish grins, “that was part of it. I know you’re less cranky after a good dinner and a drink. But I also wanted to say,” Trish leans in over the table and smiles sweetly, and Jessica once again thinks that she’d die for her, she’d do it in a heartbeat if that’s what it took to protect her, and she would never willingly hurt her, “happy birthday and that I’m so proud of you, Defender.”

Shit. It was her birthday already? Jessica wrinkles her nose. Plus, “Defender? I’m not a Voltron character.”

“That’s what the _Bugle_ called you and the others in their expose. New York’s Defenders.”

“That’s such a shit name.”

“Better than the Avengers.”

Jessica sighs. They’re officially superheroes now. “Ain’t that true.”

Trish takes her hand and doesn’t stop smiling. “My fearless Defender.”

 

_(two months seventeen days four hours)_

Jessica wants to tell her that she will get into the mystery of IGH. She wants to tell her that she’s not alone, that she’s not the only freak, that there was another person IGH screwed over the same way they did her and that he had it even worse. 

But Matt Murdock is dead, at his own hand rather than his sexy mass killer’s, and Jessica _is_ alone. She feels more alone that she did two months before, before he went and died, and before she met him, before she knew she _was_ a hero and a protector of this city. Jessica is used to loss by now. To loss and missed chances. She lost her parents before she had a chance to truly appreciate them being there for her. She lost her brother before she had a chance to see him grow up and become her friend. She lost Hope before she had a chance to help her find a way out of the darkness. She lost Luke before she could figure out if that was something that could have worked. And she lost Matt before she even knew they were the same, before she realized that _that_ might have worked, in some other world.

And she can’t tell Trish any of that because Matt Murdock was not supposed to be anything special, because Matt Murdock had his idiot secret identity thing going on. Because Matt Murdock was dead and he told them to protect his city, and they assumed that he meant for them to protect his friends as well.

 

_(three months)_

“Jessica Jones.”

It’s been three months since Midland Circle. They had a meetup at Danny’s penthouse earlier today, just the three of them. No Colleen, no Claire, just them. Just the three out of four Defenders, drinking and laughing and grimacing, because the idiocy of Matt Murdock hung over them. And it were good three months. Daredevil was regularly spotted out in the city and fueled the gossip. Rand Enterprises bought the ruins of Midland Circle and its CEO announced plans to build a state-of-the-art community centre there. Luke was keeping an eye over Harlem and was keeping it safe. He and Danny were hanging out together, that much was clear – they were more at ease with each other, they traded jokes and friendly jabs.

Jessica closed six cases in that time, including two for Hogarth, and even ended up making the acquaintance of one of the assistant district attorneys, and not as a suspect this time.

Those were some good months. Life went on.

Jessica sighs into her third shotglass and turns around. She came to _Josie’s_ to sit down and drink and brood, and she really wasn’t in the mood.

“Franklin Nelson.” She nods her head. “Doing errands for Hogarth again?”

He sits on the stool next to her without waiting for an invitation. Impolite. “I’d like to hire a private investigator.”

“Office hours ended at 4 pm and this,” Jessica makes a broad gesture encompassing the bar, “is not my office.”

“Please,” Nelson says. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Buy me a whole bottle and I might be willing to listen.”

He gestures at the bartender who rolls her eyes and reaches under the counter to produce a bottle of the really good stuff. Jessica raises her brows, surprised, and Nelson shrugs, and clearly there’s some history here, but he doesn’t offer and she doesn’t want to prod for once.

He pours her a drink which she downs in one go. “Alright,” she says, “I’m listening.”

“You know, I put all of Matt’s things in storage,” Nelson starts. “I couldn’t bring myself to throw away a single thing. I just kept thinking about what Karen told me in the church, that she doesn’t believe he’s gone. I wanted to believe too. I hoped. And then,” he sucks in a breath, “and then _he_ started being seen again and I just. I need someone to find him. I need to know. I need to know why--“

Don’t they all.

“Nelson,” Jessica puts up a hand, “let me stop you right there.”

He blinks. He blinks again. He searches her face and he finds it, and something in his eyes breaks, then, and he seems to lose the last shred of hope right in front of her. She feels like an asshole. “It’s not Matt.”

Jessica shakes her head. And makes a decision. “It’s Danny Rand.”

At first Nelson is confused. “The billionaire?” And then he gets angry, “He has no right--“

“Nelson.” Jessica puts a hand on his shoulder and only then she realizes that he’s trembling slightly. Is it out of a barely contained fury or a barely contained grief, she doesn’t know. “He’s doing it for you.”

“How can that be for me. He’s--”

“The devil is around,” Jessica points out, “even if Matt isn’t.”

He stops mid-word. And he gets it, her meaning, he must, because he makes a wheezing sound, then lets out a choked sob and buries his face in his hands. Maybe he’s finally having his breakdown. “It’s all my fault.”

“Impossible,” Jessica says, thinking of Matt down there, desperately trying to reach Elektra and only caring about the one wrong person. She thinks, for a hundredth time, about what would have happened if she’d given in to the impulse and just knocked him out. If the elevator hadn’t broken down and she hadn’t had to keep it from falling, would she have had the time to go back for him?

“I brought him the suit to the station,” Nelson says and it sounds like he’s forcing himself to make that confession. “He wouldn’t have gone without it.”

“He would have found a way.” Of that she is sure. “He was in way too deep. He’s been in way too deep since the moment he came to the precinct to get me out that first time.”

“And that’s my fault too.” Nelson grips his short hair and pulls, hard. “I was supposed to go see you, but I was busy doing important stuff, so I sent Matt. He loves hopeless cases.” A pause. “Loved. Loved hopeless cases.”

“Ouch. Insulting, but not inaccurate.”

“I’ve always known that his _hobby_ would get him killed. I just never thought I’d be the reason.”

“Nelson, it isn’t your fault. Matt--“

She breaks off. She can’t tell him the truth. She can’t tell him that Matt stayed behind willingly, that he decided to sacrifice his life for some soulless killing machine that the Hand created. She can’t tell him that Matt knew he was leaving him behind and didn’t seem to care. Nelson doesn’t deserve that. He seems to be a nice guy and he doesn’t deserve to know that at the end of all things, his best friend weighed his importance against that of Elektra and found it worth less.

“Matt died a hero,” is what she says instead, because that’s what Franklin Nelson deserves. He deserves to remember his brother as someone who loved him and who fought for him. “He fought bravely and gave us time to escape. And he made us promise that we would keep his friends safe. And that’s what Danny is doing. He’s keeping you safe.”

 

_(three months three hours)_

“He tried, right?” Nelson asks. He has his head pillowed on his hands and he’s not even looking at Jessica, he’s looking somewhere past her, to a corner where the pool table stands. She wonders what he’s seeing there. “He tried. To get out.”

The lie doesn’t even burn. “Yeah. He did everything he could. It’s just...” She clears her throat. “As you said. We were luckier.”

“He used to be lucky too, you know,” Nelson whispers. “I guess it does always run out.”

 

_(four months twenty days thirteen hours)_

There’s someone in her apartment.

Jessica grabs an empty bottle of whiskey she has stashed next to the doorway and quietly makes her way to the office. It’s not much of a weapon, but between this and her strength, she’s fairly certain she’ll have the upper hand.

She almost drops the bottle.

“You’re dead,” she says, her tone accusing.

Matt nods. “I heard.”

 

_(four months twenty days fifteen hours)_

Jessica wants to tear hair out of her head. That, or throw Matt fucking Murdock out of the window. The latter would be more immediately satisfying, she thinks.

“Why are you here?” she asks. “And for that matter, how do you even know where I live?”

“Your address was in the file Foggy gave me,” Matt explains. “And I--I have nowhere else to go.” He must sense her disapproval, because he adds: “There’s someone living in my flat.”

Yeah. Nelson sublet it a month ago, an agonizing decision that Danny helped him with by renting the apartment for the use of some visiting foreign investors. Not that Nelson knew it was Danny Rand who was renting it, no. All the payments were routed through a fake account. Everyone was happy. Nelson was happy too, because he didn’t have to get rid of the apartment, but he didn’t have to pay for it himself, not anymore.

“You could have gone to your family,” Jessica points out. Nelson might get a heart attack, but at least he’d die happy. At least Matt would _make him_ happy, for once.

Matt grimaces. “I don’t have a family.”

Bullshit. But that would explain some things. One, that Matt Murdock was full of shit. “Yeah,” Jessica says, and whatever Matt can hear in her voice makes him flinch. “Right.”

 

_(four months twenty one days)_

Jessica sits next to the couch Matt’s dozed off on, waiting for him to wake. “Where have you been for the past five months?” she asks when she sees him stir and crack his eyes open.

Matt sits up. He yawns and stretches, and frowns. “It can’t have been five months.”

Jessica rolls her eyes. Christ. “Alright. Only a little less than five months.”

That wasn’t what Matt was expecting to hear. He runs a hand through his hair and then down his face, one smooth movement, tired and pained. “I woke up in a mission building,” he explains. “Not far from here, actually. The first--few weeks, I guess, are a bit hazy, I was in and out all the time. That’s what happens when you have a building fall down on your head. Possible head trauma.”

He’s cracking a joke. Jesus Christ, he’s cracking a joke. Jessica crosses arms over her chest. “Not funny, Murdock.”

Matt nods. “Yeah.” He rubs at his nape, nervous. “I stayed there for a while. Healed. Helped out around.”

“Why?”

Matt closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He has really pretty eyes, and the lack of sunglasses makes him look younger. He looks almost his age, but Jessica could bet most people would put him down as even younger, closer in age to Danny. “There was a woman at the mission,” Matt says, slowly, drawing the syllables out. “A nun, Sister Maggie. I thought...” He clears his throat. “I thought she was my mother.”

“You thought a nun was your mother?” Jessica asks, incredulous. In almost the five months that passed since Midland Circle, she hasn’t heard any ridiculous stories. It seems they followed Matt, not Danny. Danny’s dragon notwithstanding. “Isn’t that against some rules or shit?”

Matt doesn’t comment on that. “I was wrong, clearly.”

She doesn’t tell him, decides not to. She doesn’t tell him that his instinct was right even if the person was wrong – which seems to be a pattern with him – that his mother isn’t as dead as his father claimed. She doesn’t tell him that the woman formerly known as Grace Murdock is very much alive, and happy, on the other side of the continent from them. She doesn’t tell him he has her eyes and her nose. She doesn’t tell him he has a step-father who is a kind person, nor that he has a half-brother and a sister, nor that they have the same eyes and nose too.

What she says is a sour, “Clearly.”

 

_(four months twenty one days eight hours)_

“I’m oficially dead,” Matt says, “so it’s not like I can just walk out of your door and carry on living. And I can’t--“ He stops. Rephrases. “And Foggy deserves better.”

At least they’re in agreement on that, even though her and Matt’s definition of what it is, exactly, that Franklin Nelson deserves better, are vastly different.

“You need to find a way to un-dead yourself.”

Matt nods. “I know. I just--I need some time. And help. And you...” He cocks his head to the side, and frowns. “You and I are a lot alike.”

You have _no idea_ , Murdock. Jessica sighs. “Alright. Fine. You can stay here for a while. Just don’t get used to it, I am going to kick you out.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in the last four months.”

“Don’t get used to that either,” Jessica murmurs under her nose and wonders if he heard that.

 

_(four months twenty six days three hours)_

Jessica enters her office and finds Matt sitting behind her desk, trailing is fingers over her notepad. Spying, Murdock...? She shakes her head and reaches into her bag, takes out a small cardboard box that she throws at him.

He catches it with no effort. Show-off. “What’s that?” he asks.

“You need a disguise,” Jessica says and enjoys the sight of his brows drawn in confusion. “Trish has a habit of stopping by unannounced, and she is working with your Karen now. Can’t have you here like this.”

Matt sniffs the box. “What is it?” he repeats.

Jessica comes over and pats him on the back, beckoning him to follow her. She leads him to the bathroom, where she takes the box from him and unpacks it. She wiggles the bottle she took out a little beyond his reach. “We’re gonna dye your hair.”

Matt blanches. “Don’t touch my hair.”

“Too late,” Jessica says. “You wanted my help? I’m helping you. I can’t have you cooked up here in my office all days. My assistant lives next door, he’ll know something’s up and he’ll tell Trish. Plus, you’ve gotta earn your keep, Murdock.”

Matt closes his eyes and exhales. He nods his assent, very slowly, and after he does, Jessica grins and spins him around. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna look great.”

 

_(four months twenty six days three hours)_

It looks... less great than she anticipated.

“And?” Matt asks, nervous.

“It’s... alright.” His expression turns pained and his face gets all scrunched up. “You definitely don’t look like yourself. And that is what we wanted to achieve.” She pats him on the arm. “You’re a redhead now, Matt.”

A clearly fake one, but the red does make his eyes look more green than brown and it turns his face almost unrecognizable. Add a pair of terrible glasses and not even Franklin Nelson would spare him a second glance on the street.

Jessica shoves the feeling of being an accomplice to willful assholery to the back of her mind.

 

_(four months twenty seven days)_

It’s good that he can’t see himself. She can barely contain her laughter when she looks at him now, a long-lost older brother of _Riverdale_ ’s Archie.

Matt can’t stop running a hand through his hair. She wonders if the texture is different, now. “How is--Karen?” he asks.

“She’s fine,” Jessica says. “She and Trish run a blog about the happenings around the city, you know, whose dog went missing, where the next local school fair is, traditional local recipes. A surprising success, overall.” She gestures towards her assortment of beer cans, hoping to communicate a ‘do you want one?’ Matt declines with a shake of his red-haired head, so Jessica gets only one for herself. “She did get mixed up in the sequel to the Frank Castle drama, though.”

Matt’s red-haired head snaps up. “Is she alright?”

“She’s more than fine. I keep tabs on her. I keep tabs on the people keeping tabs on her. She’s perfectly fine and happy. She has a dog now. I think it’s Castle’s. She really is fond of the guy.”

“That’s--good.”

Jessica waits, but he doesn’t ask.

 

_(five months one day)_

“You know,” Matt tells her one day, after a long day on the job, after she’s vented her frustrations about Hogarth and her ridiculous cases, “while cheating on one’s wife is not illegal, doing so with the vice-president of a competing company _could_ count as aiding and abetting corporate espionage.”

Jessica cracks one eye open and glances at him. “What?”

"That case? Elliot Guthrie?" Matt shrugs. “You said you had nothing truly incriminating on the guy. This might be it. You should tell Hogarth. That woman works for Lorenz Electronics.”

Jessica springs upright and makes a grab for her laptop. “How do you even know that?”

“Lorenz Electronics used to be a client of Landman & Zack,” Matt explains. “And as for corporate espionage, I am a lawyer. Or, was a lawyer. But a good one.”

Jessica types ‘Lorenz Electronics’ into Google and yup, there it is, the CEO and all the vice-presidents, and the lady the douchebag Hogarth told her to investigate is boning is right. There. Jessica whistles. “Nice,” she says. “Thanks, Matt.”

He smiles and the smile is boyish and reaches his eyes. “Just trying to earn my keep.”

 

_(five months ten days one hour)_

He’s in her office when the woman comes.

“Jessica Jones?” she asks. She’s pretty and petite, with black hair tied in a ponytail. She has her hands on the shoulders of a girl no older than twelve, a pretty little thing with big dark brown eyes and her mother’s black hair.  
“Yes?”

“I’m Melanie Wilkis, and this is my daughter, Kara. I was hoping I could talk with you.”

“Sure.”

Jessica allows the woman and her daughter to enter, and leads them to her office. Malcolm is out, doing research at the city archives for another one of Hogarth’s cases, and Matt is here, using the opportunity of Malcolm’s absence to do research for the corporate espionage thing.

He raises his head when Jessica enters. “That’s my associate--Mike,” Jessica introduces him. Matt makes a face at the name, but plays along. “What can I do for you, Ms. Wilkis?”

Melanie Wilkis bites her lip and hesitates. “It’s about Kilgrave,” she says.

 

_(five months ten days eleven hours)_

“Who’s Kilgrave?” Matt asks.

They’re sitting on the rooftop of Jessica’s building. She’s never come here before Matt, and for some reason this is his favourite place to be. A hideout. Or a resting place. For Jessica, the noise is overwhelming.

“A scumbag who ruined my life,” Jessica says.

She doesn’t want to get into details. It’s enough that Kilgrave ruined her life, made her ruin Luke’s life, and was still ruining the lives of so many people, Melanie Wilkis and her daughter included. Jesus Christ. They wondered if Hope’s kid would inherit Kilgrave’s powers. Kara Wilkis was proof that it would have.

And apparently, she wasn’t the only one.

“He could control people,” Jessica says instead. “Whatever he told you to do, you had to.”

“Could?”

“Could.” Jessica nods. “He’s dead. I killed him. I snapped his neck. He threatened Trish. I couldn’t let him get to my sister. Oh, _fuck_.” Jessica pinches the bridge of her nose. “I need to find those other kids.”

“ _We_ need to find them,” Matt corrects her. She shakes her head in question. “I work for you now. Plus--the girl, Kara? She--smelled _weird_.”

“Maybe she uses a weird body lotion.”

“Maybe,” Matt admits. “But it’s also possible that it’s something unique to people like her.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard.”

Matt grins. “Stupider than resurrected ninjas and a dragon buried under New York?”

“Yup,” Jessica says, overpronouncing the ‘p’. “I’m used to the ninjas by now. Smelling superpowers is now the weird thing.”

Matt laughs at that.

 

_(five months twenty days sixteen minutes)_

It takes him longer than she thought.

“Hogarth is impressed with my work,” Jessica says, “claims I’ve become more ‘reliable and organized’. And Nelson wanted to know which lawyer I had at my beck and call and why I didn’t ask _him_ for help.”

A loud _crack_ alerts her to the fact that Matt dropped something in the kitchen. A mug, most likely. He emerges from the kitchen a moment later, and yup, there’s a juice stain on his jeans. “You saw Foggy?”

“He does work there,” Jessica says, “and I have been keeping an eye on him. Danny and I both. Coverage from all angles.”

“How... How is he?”

Where to begin. Nelson looked slightly better, managed to gain back a little bit of that lost weight and no longer looked underfed and neglected. His smiles were still fake and his eyes were still dead, but he hasn’t cried into Jessica’s shoulder in a bar for almost three weeks now, so there was progress.

"Not great," is what she settles on. Matt at least has the good sense to look conflicted. "He's safe, Danny made sure to give New York enough Daredevil to keep people from connecting the dots. He’s not going to go down because of you."

"That''s--that's good."

"It's really not."

She can practically _hear_ him grit his teeth. "He's better off without me."

"He's really fucking _not_. Sure, I've only known Nelson for like four months, but he looks like a nice and cheerful guy, not like death warmed over on holiday. And _that_ is what he's like now. Dead-eyed and puffy and, and, and _empty_. Because you died. Because you stayed behind." She lets her voice drop to a whisper. "Why did you stay behind?"

"I had to try to save Elektra..."

"She was the Hand's killing machine,” Jessica interrupts him angrily, “she killed your Branch, she almost killed everyone! Why did you pick her over the rest of us?"

"I had to," Matt says and makes it sound reasonable, like it's the only explanation that makes sense. "And I'm sorry, Jessica, but we weren’t a team, or even friends. It was my choice. It is _my life_."

"No, it's fucking not, you selfish moron!" Jessica leaps off her couch and starts pacing around her small office. Matt follows the sound of her footfalls, which even to her sound angry, agitated. "Your life does not belong to just you. The moment you make friends, the moment you become a part of a family, or of a community, your life stops being just _yours_. You no longer own it, because you're no longer the only person impacted by it. Others have a say, too."

"Jessica..."

She stops. She wiggles a finger in his general direction, as if he were a child. "Oh no. No, no, don't you fucking _dare_. Don't you dare. You left them. You went to Midland Circle with us and you left them behind. And no, it's not fucking _better_ , because they waited, they waited for you to come through that door and you _didn't_. You left them behind and you left _us_ behind. You asked us to protect your city and you left us behind, and you left your family behind, and we protected them too, because Danny thought that's what you would have wanted, but it wasn't. You didn't even think about them, you didn’t even _care_ , because you had a choice and you _left them_."

Matt stammers, "I didn't--"

"Yeah, you did! You left them and you broke them, and you clearly didn't care, because who does that, knowingly? What kind of a person does that to someone they love? I watched Franklin Nelson _cry_ , more times than I ever wanted, because _you_ are a selfish dick."

Matt’s head drops. He licks his lips, takes a breath. "He'll get over it."

What the fuck. "Yeah? Did you get over your dad's death?" Matt flinches. _Good_. “Because I sure didn't get over my family's deaths. And I know you didn't. Just like I know Nelson won't, because ‘getting over it’," Jessica emphasizes her point with air quotes, "is a myth. It's fucking bullshit. You don't get over it. Not that kind of grief. That shit is like a chasm in your soul, a black hole inside your heart, like there are pieces of you missing. And you don't get over it, and it doesn't get better, you just push it to the back of your mind, try to ignore it for as long as you can, and then it becomes a constant companion, a familiar deep ache that is simply a part of you. You learn to live with it, with a broken heart. You don't get over it, you just get used to it being _there_ , always."

Jessica sucks in a shaky breath. "You and I both know that kind of grief. It's something you carry with you forever. So I just can't, _can't_ understand how you could have done that to them, how you could have knowingly and willingly stayed and left them behind, how you could have picked _her_ over them." Jessica scoffs and shakes her head. "For the longest time I kept asking myself, what the fuck was he thinking, but the truth is that you weren't thinking at all. You weren't thinking about those two people waiting for you at the precinct and that's the fucking saddest thing I've ever heard.” She kicks the couch. “And _fuck_ it, I need a drink."

 

_(five months twenty days one hour four minutes)_

When she gets back home from the store, Matt's gone.

Which in itself is not surprisingly, he doesn't live in her flat – she doesn’t know where he lives, but the mission is a good bet – and he goes places during the day, but he didn't even wait for her to come back. Just vanished, poof! and he's gone, and maybe that's good. He deserved all the crap she told him.

 

_(six months two hours)_

Out of all people, it's Luke who calls her.

"Are you watching the news?"

Jessica snorts. "Luke, honestly. I don't own a TV."

"There's a gunman at Hogarth's offices,” he says. “He took hostages and is threatening to blow up the building.”

Jessica gasps and her first thought is, "Danny." Danny was going to see Hogarth today, they had a meeting planned. Jesus fucking shit, she hated domestic terrorists and buildings blowing up.

"Safe," Luke says, and sounds as relieved as Jessica feels. "Says he must have passed the guy in the entrance when he was leaving. But,” Luke pauses, “Foggy Nelson works there, doesn't he?"

Yes. Fuck. “Fuck,” Jessica curses, because he does, and he's maybe not a friend, exactly, but making sure he's okay has become an important part of her life. "Meet me in the café opposite?"

"I'm on my way there. Danny's already waiting."

And maybe stopping gunmen from killing stuck-up lawyers is a definite step down from saving New York from undead homicidal ninjas, but they're the Defenders. They’re superheroes. And maybe they don't do alien invasions and crazy robots. So what. They deal with the local stuff, and that means helping whoever they can, whenever they can.

Saving people, kicking ass, the family business.

 

_(six months three hours)_

They break in through the back entrance and really, a bad _déjà vu_.

"What's the plan?" Danny asks, looking between her and Luke for guidance. And, well, Jessica didn’t plan that far ahead so she just shrugs.

But it's Matt's voice that answers him. "The gunman is a former client, Elliot Guthrie. He's taken ten people hostage on the thirtieth floor. We get up there, you and I deal with Guthrie while Jessica and Luke get the hostages out."

Jessica can't help but smile when Danny startles at the sound of Matt's voice, and then her smile turns into a grin when Matt makes a grand entrance, jumping down from somewhere above them and landing perfectly between the three of them. Dra-Matt-ic as fuck.

She turns to Luke and finds him grinning too. "There it is again," she says. And it is, the suit and the horns and the everything.

Danny launches himself and envelopes Matt in a hug before any of them can react. "It's good to have you back," he says and doesn't even question Matt's apparent resurrection or why Jessica doesn’t seem surprised. Maybe that's normal, in Danny's world. "And that suit is terrible."

Matt squeezes back, briefly. "Thank you," Jessica hears him whisper. And then he lets go. "Shall we?"

 

_(six months three hours thirty eight minutes)_

Elliot Guthrie shrieks when he sees her and sends bullets flying. An extreme example of a dissatisfied client. And a surprisingly difficult one to take down.

But, it's a joy to see Matt in action, fighting back to back with Danny. It's eerie, how similar their styles are, and yet how different, how Danny is controlled and almost dance-like movements where Matt is just a boxer’s grit and passion.

Luke ends up taking a bullet meant for her, and that's nice too, how he winks at her after it bounces off of him. Together, they make their way towards the huddled hostages, about a half of them altogether.

Nelson is not with them.

"Where's Franklin Nelson?" she asks.

On the other side of the room, Danny finally uses his glowy fist to punch Elliot Guthrie out and Matt stops dead in his tracks. He stops and he listens, and he moves towards another of the offices even before a shaking paralegal points at the door.

"Hey, Horns!" Jessica calls after him.

Three interns scream and run out of a supply closet and past them as they make their way to the room together. And sure enough, Nelson is sitting there on the floor, propped up against the wall, pale and with a hand pressed to his abdomen. And there’s blood everywhere, its smell potent and nauseous. Matt puts a hand over his nose and mouth, and Jessica can hear him gag. He looks like he’s going to be sick and he can’t even see how bad it is.

"Nelson." She crouches next to him and shakes his arm. He looks way too pale. Way, way too pale. "Hey, Nelson!"

He cracks one eye open and doesn’t seem able to focus on her. He looks past her and grimaces. "Rand," he rasps. "G'wy."

Jessica frowns. Rand? Maybe run? Sand? No, it was clearly 'Rand'. "Nelson, what--" She pauses. Glances behind her, following his line of sight, and sees Matt.

No. Correction, sees a man in the Daredevil suit.

Shit. "Nelson," she shakes his arm again, "Nelson, listen to me." Nelson grunts and his head drops and lolls from side to side, in time with her shakes. "Nelson!"

A pair of heavy boots stops within her eyesight and Matt drops to a crouch next to her. He takes off his mask and lets it fall to the floor. Instead, he cups Nelson's cheek in his palm and runs a gentle thumb across his cheekbone. "Foggy, hey, Foggy. Please," he says, and his voice gets progressively more panicked, spooked by something Jessica can't perceive, "please, please, don't, please don't, no, no, no, please no..."

 

_(six months twenty three hours)_

She watches as Franklin Nelson opens his eyes, squints, and groans in pain. She hands him the morphine drip controller and soon he sighs with relief. "Better?" she asks.

"Much," comes a muffled reply, "thanks. Where...?"

"You're in Danny's state-of-the-art hospital, under the loving care of Claire Temple and the nurses. And you'll be happy to know that Elliot Guthrie has been caught and that no one except you was injured.” She waits a beat, letting him digest that. “What the hell happened?"

Nelson grimaces. "Was tryin' to talk 'im down," he slurs slightly. "Didn' work."

"Clearly," Jessica comments dryly. "He put two bullets into you. You're lucky he's a crap shot and missed everything vital. Though you did lose lots of blood. Luke had to donate."

"I think I died," Nelson mumbles, and it doesn’t look like he heard a word of what Jessica said.

"Sorry to disappoint you, you're very much alive."

"Nooo," Nelson says. "Saw Matt. Must've died."

Oh boy. "You're a good guy, Nelson. I doubt Murdock's ugly face would be the thing that greets you in the afterlife."

"M-hm..."

She stays with him until he falls back asleep. She pats his hand before getting up and leaving. She makes her way towards the elevators; she smiles at Claire as she passes her by and sees her walk into Nelson's room. Good. Claire will keep him safe. Claire knows he’s important.

She finds Matt sitting on the bench just outside the entrance. "You're not worried someone might see your dead self walking around?"

He laughs. "Haven't you heard? I'm not presumed dead anymore."

"Oh?"

"Danny,” Matt says the kid’s name and makes it sound like a complete explanation. Jessica rolls her eyes. All the money in the world. “Apparently, he knows someone at the FBI. He talked with them and they clarified a few things. For example, they confirmed that I was a part of an important ongoing investigation into Midland Circle Financial and that they faked my death to protect me from possible retaliation. And now that it's over, I can be me again."

"Wow," Jessica deadpans. She sits down on his left. "So nice of the FBI to let you out."

"Right? I'll need to thank Danny for arranging that the next time I see him."

Jessica snorts and Matt's lips twitch too. "He woke up," she tells him and doesn’t have to explain whom she means. "He saw you, after you took off that mask. Right now he thinks he died, briefly, and you welcomed him in Heaven or something."

"He did die, briefly," Matt says. "Claire told Luke, Luke told me. During the surgery, he died. It didn't stick, but he died. His heart stopped and, and he was _dead_." _And that hurt like a bitch,_ Jessica adds mentally. Next to her, Matt exhales softly and leans back, tipping his head over the bench's backrest. "You know, he's been to the hospital three times over the course of the last three years and I've never gone to see him."

"Well, to be fair, you can't see."

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean." Jessica mirrors his pose and looks up at the sky. The stars are beautiful and it surprises her that she can see them, despite the light pollution and shit. "You could go now, being alive again and all. Would be a nice surprise. And if he gets a heart attack, that's great too, as you're already at a hospital."

Matt shudders at the thought and Jessica feels vindictively satisfied. It’s not fun, losing people. "You were right," Matt says after a beat. "Before. About me not thinking. About picking the wrong people. I'm glad that I have the chance to make it right."

"As long as you pick the right people now," Jessica replies, thinking of Nelson upstairs and Karen Page crying at the precinct. 

"I'll try." Matt gets up. He brushes off some dirt from his trousers and unfolds his cane. He looks almost like the lawyer who came bust her out. Well, the sunglasses are different and his hair is still _Riverdale_ Archie red. But. Baby steps. "Oh, and Jessica?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you like to meet sometime? Outside of our,” he waves a hand, “other business. I believe I still owe you a hot dog."

Jessica smiles. He remembered. "Sure,” she says. “I'd love that."

Matt nods. She observes him tap his way to the hospital door and then looks back to the sky. For once, it's peaceful in New York. She closes her eyes and imagines, imagines Matt sitting down on the chair she vacated and taking Nelson's hand, and she imagines Matt holding on until Nelson wakes and then squeezing, and she imagines them both crying and Nelson cursing him and squeezing back and Matt not letting go. 

And she imagines Danny with Colleen, grilling some poor FBI fellow, spinning a tale to protect Matt Murdock, because Matt Murdock was a part of this city and protecting the city meant protecting him too. 

And she imagines Claire coming back home to Luke and telling him all about this little miracle she's witnessed today. 

And she imagines Karen Page crying again, but this time those are happy tears, because it might have taken him half a year longer than everyone else, but Matt Murdock came back from Midland Circle because he had people to come back to.

And she imagines hot dogs and beautiful boyish smiles, and she realizes she's hungry, but it's such a peaceful and good night that screw food. She folds her arms behind her neck and pillows her head on them, and she lets herself dream.


End file.
